Tender the Storm (25 page)

Impulsively, Zoë threw her arms around the older girl's shoulders. "Oh my dear," she said, "things are very different now. Do you see what this means? You may return without fear of reprisal and discover what has happened to your loved ones. Oh I wish . . ." Tears burned her eyes. The words would not come.

Francoise lifted her head. "What do you wish, Zoë?"

Zoë's arms dropped away and she began to pace like a caged wild thing. She pivoted to face her friend. In an anguished tone, she said, "I wish I had never wed! I wish I had remained as Lady Kilburn's companion! Then I might go to France with you to find my family. And I
shall
go with you! Yes! I shall, if he tries to send me back to his mother!" There was a stunned silence. Then, as if the words were wrung from her, Zoë cried out, "Oh, Francoise, I'm so unhappy and I don't know what to do."

Lord Rivard's young footman finally tracked down his master in one of the gaming dens which proliferated around St. James. As instructed by his master's valet,
Dere
, he handed in a note. Though the footman could not read, he was an intelligent lad, and guessed, quite correctly, that
Dere
was advising his lordship of her ladyship's unheralded descent on the
house in St. James Square.

There was need of that warning, for, only last week, his lordship had comported himself with an almost total disregard for the proprieties. It was shocking, but sadly true, that on that occasion the marquess had returned to the house in St. James in the wee hours of the morning in company of a ladybird, and had kept her in his chamber the whole night through! That his lordship was three sheets to the wind was held, by the female servants, to be of no moment. The marquess was a gentleman. A gentleman worthy of that exalted title was never inebriated to the point of folly. And for a gentleman to dally with a light o' love in the
family
mansion, no less, was an indiscretion bordering on insanity.

It was the upstairs maid, Jessie, who had put her finger on what ailed the master, in the footman's opinion.

"Mark my words!" she said with a sapient wink.
" 'Is
Lordship's 'ad a disappointment!
That's wot
! Some lady, or ladybird" — at this point, elbowing the footman playfully —
" 'as
turned '
im
off." A thought struck her. "
May'ap
'tis the new
un
—the young mistress!
Cor
blimey! And she's a
Froggie
! I thought they
was
always '
ot
."

At this point in the young footman's reflections, the door to the gaming club opened and his master took a few stumbling steps down the stairs. The footman put out a hand to steady him.

"Fetch me a chair, there's a good fellow," said Rolfe, carefully erasing the slur from his speech. He swayed alarmingly.

The footman obediently hailed a waiting sedan and the marquess laboriously entered it. He gave an address which the young footman countermanded a mo
ment afterwards, but not so that his master would notice.

Inside the sedan, Rolfe held up the folded note and tried to decipher
Dere's
scrawl. He soon gave up the attempt, and let the note fall where it might. Intermittently humming to
himself
and bursting into a snatch of a bawdy song he'd picked up in school days, he settled back and forced himself to contemplate the sensual delights awaiting, him once he arrived at the little nest he kept for his mistress. Within minutes, his thoughts had wandered.

He had good reason to drown his sorrows, reflected Rolfe. Betrand was dead, and Rolfe still could not believe it. The boy was no more than twenty or so. He blamed himself. He had set a trap for the boy, using as his bait Amy Granger. When the boy had come for her, they were waiting for him. They had expected to take Betrand alive. It was not to be. When cornered, he had shot and killed one of Rolfe's agents. In the ensuing melee, Betrand, himself, had been shot dead. And now there was no one to lead them to
Le Patron.

A furious oath burst from Rolfe. He could not find it in himself to care one way or another whether or not they ever caught up with
Le Patron.
But Betrand — oh God, what a waste of a young life! His eyes were burning. He stared out at the dark night, seeing nothing. Before long, his lashes drifted down. By the time the sedan stopped outside his house in St. James Square, Rolfe was snoring softly.

He awakened with a feeling of complete and utter disorientation. Though it was dark, he knew that the woman sleeping beside him must be his mistress. But her fragrance, as fresh as field lilies, brought to mind the vision of another lady.
Zoë.
Oh God! Rolfe groaned and flung one arm over his eyes.
Waking.
Sleeping.
Drunk.
Sober. He had developed an obsession for little Zoë.

"Rolfe. Are you awake?"

He flinched. He must be going crazy, he decided, to think that
Rosamund's
voice sounded anything like his wife's. Or perhaps he was in a drunken stupor? Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking that made him imagine that the women by his side had the feel and smell of Zoë. Good God! Surely he had not said her name aloud?

Quickly, he rose above the woman in his bed. "Don't spoil it," he said, sensing that Rosamund was about to say something. "Just let me imagine . . ." He shook his head, trying to get a grasp on reality. This was a dangerous game he was playing. How much longer could he protect Zoë from himself if he once began to pretend that the woman he took to bed was his wife?

"Rolfe?" His name was a brush of silk against his skin.

This was torture. He was only human after all. Once, just once, surely there could be no harm in a little deception? And no one but he need ever be the wiser . . .

"Kitten," he said, and wished he could say "Zoë."

"Don't talk. Just kiss me."

It was going to be all right, thought Zoë. Rolfe wasn't angry. He hadn't ordered her from his bed. He wanted her to kiss him. She must be careful not to shrink from whatever he asked of her. He was her husband. She loved him.

Lips molded gently to lips. Breath mingled. Skin whispered against skin. And for Rolfe, conscious thought gradually receded as he let the obsession take hold.
Zoë.
Her name drummed inside his head.
Zoë.
Reality slipped into fantasy till he could scarcely distinguish one from the other.

She was shy. He knew she would be. But she accepted each kiss and
caress
the way he had dreamed she would. Oh God, his imagination was more powerful than he had ever suspected. And yet, it all seemed so real.

"I've wanted you forever, kitten," he told her frankly, and his hands moved under her nightdress, gently easing it upwards, removing it completely so that there was no barrier for what was to follow. "If only you knew!" he whispered.
"Oh God!
What I've dreamed of doing! I've wanted to kiss you and touch you all over, from your silky head of hair to the tips of your little toes."

His fingers ploughed into her hair combing through it, wrapping it around his throat like silken bonds. He laughed softly. "God, how it would shock her if she only knew what I've dreamed of doing to her!"

"Rolfe?" He wasn't making sense to Zoë.

"Hush. Be still. Let me touch you. I want to know every inch of you."

It took every ounce of her willpower not to jerk as his hands began a slow exploration. She was shy — unbearably so. But she knew better than to object, or show reluctance to follow his lead. He was too sensitive to her feelings. One protest from her and he would put her down as the child she was determined to demonstrate, once and for all, was only a figment of his imagination. And then, incredibly, as his hands and lips moved over her, the shyness left her, and she yielded to a strange sense of floating, of languor. It was like drowning, she thought, and touched her hands to his powerful shoulders to steady herself.

It was Rolfe who jerked at that first tentative touch. "Ah God, yes, kitten! Like this!" and he moved her hand slowly from his throat to his groin, forcing her to spread her fingers through the coarse mat of hair on his chest, down, down, over the granite-hard muscles of his stomach to his loins.

Zoë braced herself for what was coming. Nothing could have prepared her for the reality of the aroused male. She couldn't help herself. She tried to wrench her hand away, but Rolfe steadied her as if he had anticipated her rejection. "I'm only a man," he said with a trace of humor. "Now touch me," and to ensure her obedience, he thrust himself boldly into her cupped hand, smoothing her fingers over the pulsating length of him. Awkwardly, fearfully, Zoë traced the powerful root of his masculinity.

Her mouth was taken in such
a ferocity
of hunger that she gasped. Her hands fell away from him and clutched at the sheets, twisting them into knots. She had a sudden urge to confess that it had all been a terrible
mistake, that
she was, in truth, too young for what he wanted from her. She forced herself to relax, recalling every sage word her mother had told her respecting the marriage bed. She must yield herself completely to her husband. There would be pain at the moment of their joining, but it would soon pass, and all the more quickly if she did not tense herself for what was to come.

So involved was she in her thoughts, that his hand was
there,
between her legs, before she could do more than suck in her breath. She grabbed for his wrist, but his fingers had already begun the gentle invasion, stroking through the sensitive folds of her femininity. Zoë choked out a strangled sound of protest, but he was attacking on all fronts, his mouth fastening on one sensitive nipple before teasing the other. Air expanded in Zoë's lungs and whooshed out like a deflated balloon. She moaned, and this time the sound was unmistakably one of pleasure. Beneath him, she softened like melting wax, molding herself to take his impression. Her fingers caught in his hair. Surrender trembled all through her body.

The male in Rolfe exulted in her feminine submission. He sat back on his heels and eased her legs apart to lie over his flanks, opening her body to his whim. He'd long since given up the effort to regulate his breathing. "I've dreamed of you purring for me, kitten, do you know? Ah, love, what odds? This is nothing but a fantasy. Nothing I do can shock you," and his head dipped to that secret place between her thighs.

Bewildering, hot tremors of sensation swept through Zoë. She tried to speak, but only choked moans, remarkably like a kitten purring, escaped her lips. Her hands clutched at his sleek head, tugging him into an awareness of her dire extremity. She thought she might be on the verge of an attack of palpitations, so erratically was her heart racing. Oh God, she was going to die.

Suddenly, he covered her with the weight of his body. In a rush of passion he kissed her brows, her chin, her nose, before his mouth settled on hers. His kiss was as shockingly voluptuous as the rest of his lovemaking, his tongue surging and receding in an age-old rhythm. Zoë reveled in it.

When he pulled back, they were both panting hard. Rolfe closed his eyes, trying to get a hold on himself. He was on fire for her as he had never been on fire for any woman. He mustn't hurt her.
Zoë.
Good God! What was he thinking? He could never make love to little Zoë like this. The illusion blurred at the edges. The woman in his arms was not Zoë. "Oh no!" he groaned.
"Rosamund!"
He would not accept it. It was Zoë he wanted. He would make it so.